becoming a longarmer

Picking up where we left off yesterday...
(this lying around all day is good for something, I suppose)

While deeply grateful for the opportunity to practice and learn

on other people's tops,

I was starting to feel 

that if I continued this much longer,
I was going to be getting the short end of the stick.

I totally recognize I could not have gotten to where I am

as a quilter

without these ladies allowing me to quilt 

less than amazing quilting

on their carefully pieced tops.

but because of that

I was actually starting to get

- dare I say -

good.

I didn't feel like I could just go on 

indefinitely

quilting for free,

no matter how badly I wanted

 to be able to continue to practice regularly.

There are only so many hours a week 

I can dedicate to this hobby/ministry.
and while I was loving the improvement to my quilting,
I wasn't doing anything to help improve lives for my RR ladies.
(Not that I always have to be - but it is always on my radar)

I started thinking about maybe quilting for pay,
but at a reduced beginner rate.

It'd be a win for me,

because I'd still be getting practice,
but I'd also be able to earn some money

for more machines for Rahab's rope,

and it'd be a win for clients,

because they'd be getting decent quilting

- with a little more character 

than computer generated edge to edge 

or pantograph quilting -

for less $$

(and that money would be going to a good cause!)

I also had been thinking

that

as much as I love Lucy

and am so grateful and thrilled to have this old longarm,

I'd really like to be able to do ruler work.

(translated - I'd like a different longarm someday
in the not too distant future)

It's something that I'd been looking forward to

 about owning a longarm machine.

I didn't realize

that without a stitch regulator,

ruler work would be difficult (at best)

and when you add a very heavy machine to the equation,

it's next to impossible.

So I wondered -
would it be okay if I saved some of that money
for myself
??

God is always so good to us.

Every big decision we've had,

where we might be inclined to not see exactly eye to eye,

He has brought us -separately- to complete agreement.

Where one of us starts the conversation

(with perhaps a bit of trepidation)

and the other one says,

"Yes! That's exactly what I was thinking too."

The end of July,

Tyler told me he'd been thinking.

He thought that I should think about 

quilting for pay.

And that I shouldn't donate all of the money,

but keep some of my earnings

to save for another longarm.

a horribly pieced and badly cared for vintage quilt top I purchased off Etsy.
Quilting this showed me that I just might actually have a gift!
I'll share more about this one when it reaches the top of the to-be-bound stack ;-)

But.

I didn't want to just throw myself out there.

(I don't want to spend my precious sewing time

quilting ugly tops.
Just being honest here.)

So I was thinking and pondering and praying 

about how to proceed.

the quilting on the colored portion and the right side background fabric was done on my domestic.
I finally got good enough, and brave enough (and tired enough of this quilt needing to be finished...)
to figure out how to put the partially quilted thing on the longarm.
The top portion was done by Lucy.

Three days after Tyler and I had that conversation,

I got a message from Mary.

She wanted to discuss
 hiring me to quilt for her.

💗